Add me to the "I don't hear it" group on that last one. Obviously there was something, somewhere, since Andy settled out of court...but you couldn't prove it by the selection chosen to illustrate that point.

Yeah, here's the correct section for both of those pieces. The fact that the aria is in a significantly higher key might throw a few people off... but amusingly, it happens to be in the same key as a version of MOTN I played in high school band, so I caught it immediately.

Yeah, I still don't really hear it, and only slightly hear it with the phrase from MOTN juxtaposed with it. If that's copying, then all of music is copying. There's only so much you can do with a few notes, and sometimes some bits will sound kind of like other bits when there's really more difference between them than similarities.

SenorSwanky wrote:Yeah, I still don't really hear it, and only slightly hear it with the phrase from MOTN juxtaposed with it. If that's copying, then all of music is copying. There's only so much you can do with a few notes, and sometimes some bits will sound kind of like other bits when there's really more difference between them than similarities.

I though the "turn your face away from the garish light of day" part was very obvious. But I agree that it's pretty impossible to come up with something new, and that parts of new compositions is bound to sound like elder ones, either in mood/style or actual notes. If only in parts. Speaking of which... The worst example I've heard is Vengaboys and their "Boom boom boom boom", which is almost identical to Abba's "Lay all your love on me":

Listen to 0:28-0:42 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llyiQ4I-mcQAnd then to 0:44-1:05 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST6qpR0iO_s&feature=fvst

Seriously, WTF?

_________________JOSEFINE TO THE PHANTOM:You come off as... somewhat... rough...

HDKingsbury wrote:OMG! I listened to both and just sat in disbelief. That is just so wrong!

The ABBA/Vengaboys one? It's the worst rip-off I've ever heard.

But as for the ALW/Puccini debate, I read an interesting comment in a Norwegian paper today. Thing is that Stephen Brandt Hansen and a couple of other talented Nordic musical singers does a "Musical gala" in a couple of days. SBH was interviewed about some of the material he is to sing, which is said to be written especially for him by ALW himself. He mentions that

"I was allowed to work with him alone, and that's when I was allowed to use the original version of "Memory" from Cats. He originally wrote that for an opera (musical? my note) about Puccini's life. Two weeks before the opening night of Cats it was added to the performance. If you listen closely to "Memory", you'll hear it's actually a tenor song.".

I don't know if the "especially written stuff" he is to perform actually is the early "Memory" version or other stuff. The newspaper is likely to have slightly misunderstood what he said. But I'll try to get a program and see what they're performing, and if it indeed is new material. Whatever the case, SBH is a talented guy, and he's done the title role in "Jesus Christ Superstar" almost 800 times (as well as numerous Jean Valjeans). He's very ALW material, voice wise. And if he mentions the Puccini stuff, and the origins of "Memory", he is likely to have discussed this with ALW, yes?

IamErik771 wrote:Yeah, here's the correct section for both of those pieces. The fact that the aria is in a significantly higher key might throw a few people off... but amusingly, it happens to be in the same key as a version of MOTN I played in high school band, so I caught it immediately.

Yes, it is very obvious. I believe it's that part which was behind the Puccini estate suing Lloyd Webber in the early 2000s. There's very little information on that available, so it seems RUG did well in trying to hush everything up. I'm not quite sure whether this was resolved in a settlement or whether the Puccini estate actually still gets royalties from Phantom (they must be laughing all the way to the bank if the latter is true). I always assumed it was a settlement - at least that's what was said in one of the papers that briefly mentioned it (I think it might have been the Toronto Globe and Mail?), but I've recently been informed through a source at RUG who shall remain unnamed that the estate actually gets royalties! Hmm...

I don't really buy the common allegation that the main opening chords of the overture and the title song are nicked from Pink Floyd, though. Yes, they're virtually identical, but all it is is a simple descending chromatic scale...a pretty basic device.

Over the years I've been building a list of ALW's stuff that seems heavily influenced by/directly lifted from other people's stuff, plus examples of his own self-plagiarism. Take it with a pinch of salt, I'm not saying that they constitute plagiarism, but I find it interesting. I need to update it a bit as there are a few more examples I've noticed...(oh and apologies for typos in the list, there are probably quite a few).

1) Love is Here (Likes of us) TRAVEL HOPEFULLY from JEEVES / BY JEEVES 2) The Likes of Us (Likes of Us) VARIATION 18 from VARIATIONS / DANCE 3) You Won't Care About her Anymore (Likes of Us) I DON'T THINK I'M WANTED BACK AT HOME (Jacob's Journey) / NEVER AGAIN (By Jeeves) 4) Down Thru' Summer (Single) became the coda in BUENOS AIRES 5) 1969 (Single) used themes from Beethoven's F‹R ELISE and Dvorak's New World Symphony 6) Probably on Thursday (Single) the instrumental solo became the last lines in JOSEPH: "Give me my colour coat..." 7) Kansas Morning (Single) Same opening line as Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto (First Movement) and melody recycled as I DON'T KNOW HOW TO LOVE HIM from JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR Any Dream Will Do (JOSEPH) originally "I FANCY YOU", a song which TR and ALW wanted to record with Herman's Hermits 9) Eurovision Song (Eurovision) became SALADIN DAYS in "Come Back Richard", an ALW and TR show performed only once, and again musically recycled for KING HEROD'S SONG 10) The First Book of Samuel - this show doesn't last a minute, and the melody became SUPERSTAR 11) Summer Dream - a low point in the original JEEVES. ALW was meant to have recycled the melody for EVITA 12) Half a Moment (Jeeves) - the opening lines are the codas in AS IF WE NEVER SAID GOODBYE ('Countless spinning memories spin before my view/Like some toy kaleidoscope: images of you' => 'I don't want to be alone - that's all in the past/This world's waited long enough - I'm at home at last'13) Gumshoe / Odessa File Themes - SUNSET BOULEVARD and PHANTOM OF THE OPERA 14) Phantom of the Opera Theme - identical to the chromatic chord in Pink Floyd's Echoes 15) Buenos Aires - DOWN THRU SUMMER employed as the coda, with an obscure song RED ROOM to become the rest of the melody 16) High Flying Adored - DOWN ON THE FARM (with some lyrics still intact, e.g. "stars in my/your eyes when I/you crawl(ed) in (th)at night") and an unreleased song from JEEVES 17) Unexpected Song - LITERARY MEN from JEEVES 18) You Made me Think You Were in Love - the original version in Tell Me On A Sunday had a jumpy section which quoted from a song in JEEVES 19) Memory (Cats) - has a strong likeness to Puccini, and was intended for an early - if unsettled - version of SUNSET BOULEVARD, and a one-act musical about Puccini and Leoncavallo's race to write the "La BohËme" opera. The line 'Tonight will be a memory too' resembles a phrase of music from 'O Suave Fanciulla' in LA BOHEME. Sounds very close to 'Un Bel di' from MADAM BUTTERFLY, as well as Ravel's 'Bolero'20) Engine of Love - written before STARLIGHT EXPRESS and even added (after it's re-worded version was cut) to the show 21) There's Me - this should have been a song in JEEVES 22) Requiem - contains strong sections which sound like CATS 23) Married Man - Sarah Brightman was to sing this song with the London Philharmonic, around the time her and Andrew were engaged. We can obviously see why it was abandoned - and how (inevitably) the tune became MUSIC OF THE NIGHT! 24) I Don't Talk to Strangers - a song by Placido Domingo which was recycled (melodically) as ALL I ASK OF YOU and THE POINT OF NO RETURN25) Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again - combined with Angel of Music, this evolved from an earlier version of ASPECTS OF LOVE 26) CRICKET - nearly everything from this show has made it into future Lloyd Webber productions. 27) Love Changes Everything - recycled from a number written late in the American tour of STARLIGHT EXPRESS 28) Vaults of Heaven - The Jurassic Park Theme 29) Whistle Down the Wind - Steinman is recycling lyrics from several of his older songs, most notably "Future Ain't What it Used to Be" 30) Tyre Tracks and Broken Hearts - melodically, from a song in the American SONG AND DANCE (English Girls)31) If Only - another member of Lloyd Webber's childhood Toy Suite 32) 'The Heart is Slow to Learn' -> recycled as 'Our Kind of Love' and used in THE BEAUTIFUL GAME -> AGAIN recycled as the title song for LOVE NEVER DIES. Sounds very similar to the theme from Billy Wilder's THE APARTMENT.33) The Phantom of the Opera - Title song from PHANTOM recycled from JOSEPH'S Close Every Door and Benjamin's Calypso.34) THE WOMAN IN WHITE - "Please you needn't fear me" tune directly lifted from WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND'S "No-one's ever looked at me..."35) JOURNEY TO THE CEMETERY from the PHANTOM film - recycled from THE BEAUTIFUL GAME - turns up in LOVE NEVER DIES in 'Beneath a Moonless Sky'36) ANGEL OF MUSIC from PHANTOM - see the middle section of Sondheim's 'NOT WHILE I'M AROUND'37) Superstar from JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR - Tim Rice comments in his autobiography that this is extremely similar to 'Rosemary' from A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM38) End section of MEMORY extremely similar to "I can make your sad heart sing..." and "Silent music starts to play..." from SUNSET BOULEVARD's 'WITH ONE LOOK'39) MUSIC OF THE NIGHT contains a repeated phase that, according to a reviewer for TIME magazine, seems to quote "Come to Me, Bend to Me" from BRIGADOON40) I BELIEVE MY HEART - first notes of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7 (Leningrad)41) EVITA's "But we still have the magic we always had..." is set exactly to the same tune as SUNSET's "And there was only one kind of entertainment on hand...".42) Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again's bridge is lifted from JEEVES' Half a Moment.43) JOSEPH's "Anyone from anywhere can make it if he gets a lucky break" turns up in PHANTOM's Prima Donna: "He's abusing our position/In addition he wants money...".44) SUNSET's "I love flannel on a man/This will complement his tan" originally appeared in ASPECTS, e.g. "Why did I agree/To accept this bloody tour?", "Have a lovely night/Come and see me when you can" etc.45) And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out) - this is a straight melodic lift from an actual Peronist marching song called Es el Pueblo.46) I'd Be Surprisingly Good for You from EVITA recalls a Beatles song, according to the critic Howard Kissel, presumably Yesterday.47) Phrases in SUNSET BOULEVARD such as "I can say anything I want with my eyes" and "I will not have it butchered" echo "We make certain the doors are barred" and "We make certain our men are there" from PHANTOM.48) Music of the Night - The "Open up your mind/Let your fantasies unwind..." melody seems to be lifted from ëQuello che taceteí, the love duet in Act 1 from Puccini's opera LA FANCIULLA DEL WEST49) With One Look - a reworking of Will This Last Forever? from THE LIKES OF US50) As If We Never Said Goodbye - Formerly Lazy Days of Summer from CRICKET51) The melody in PHANTOM at the words, "And in his eyes/all the sadness of the world," is closely related to Liu's suicide music in the last act of Puccini's Turandot. 52) The line 'Silent music starts to play' from SUNSET BLVD's 'With One Look' is the same music for 'Step up my friend and be my host' from 'Be My Host' in Richard Rodgers' NO STRINGS53) 'When the dark unfolds its wings/Do you hear the strangest things?' from 'The Beauty Underneath' in LOVE NEVER DIES is to the same tune as 'I want someone with a knack/Not just any studio hack' in Salome from SUNSET BLVD54) Phrase of music that concludes 'Waltz for Eva and Che' exactly the same as a phrase of music from a song by The Shadows55) "I know that I've wronged you..." from 'If Not For Me, For Her' in THE WOMAN IN WHITE recycled in LOVE NEVER DIES in 'Till I Hear You Sing' ('And sometimes, at night time, I dream that you are there...').56) Part of 'Chanson d'enfance' from ASPECTS reused in 'Too Much in Love to Care' in SUNSET57) 'Stop. Wait. Good.' from ASPECTS - reworking of Prokofiev's 'Gavotte'

John Snelson's book on ALW has a whole chapter devoted to this kind of thing, and argues that it is not plagiarism but part of Lloyd Webber's style, a sort of musical synthesis designed to evoke the familiar and that is inevitable of anyone who places melody above everything else, because the idea of melody is that you should have an idea in your head of where the tune's going before it's finished. Parts of his argument are interesting, but I don't buy everything. For instance, if you take the last example in the list, Snelson says it is very fitting because that theme introduces George, whose character is that of a forger of paintings, so it is very appropriate that he should be associated with a 'forged' melody. But Snelson completely ignores the many, many instances later on in Aspects when that tune is reprised by other characters who are not forgers at all, and there is no obvious context relating to forgery when the tune is reused (e.g. when Marcel tells Rose that Alex is waiting for her at the start of Act 2). What's the justification for the use there?

Last edited by Scorp on Wed Jun 09, 2010 5:39 pm; edited 2 times in total

At the very least, you've made a strong case for ALW being "influenced" by other composers. Is this a bad thing? Depends upon how far this "influence" is taken. It's one thing to want to write in the same style as someone you admire; it's another to start borrowing liberally. I leave it to folks more knowledgeable in these things than I to make that judgment.

HDKingsbury wrote:At the very least, you've made a strong case for ALW being "influenced" by other composers. Is this a bad thing? Depends upon how far this "influence" is taken. It's one thing to want to write in the same style as someone you admire; it's another to start borrowing liberally.

I agree with that. Compare it to movies - it's not uncommon that they "quote" other movies, either through style or specific scenes. It depends on how it's done. If they've merely tried to copy the success formula, it'll probably not be a good movie. Used as an artistic choice, however, it can be good, or even excellent.

It's quite a list you got there, Scorp! Must listen to some of those examples. And interesting note about the Puccini estate and eventual royalties.

I went to that musical gala I told about previously (got cheap tickets), and got to hear the "original" Memory, pre Elaine Paige. The lyric was in Italian, and instead of "mem'ry", the key word was "piano" (slow, soft). Which is a version made famous by Sarah Brightman. So it's not like the singer got to dig through ALW's drawers, as one newspaper implied. But cool to hear a tenor version of it.

"Piano": http://www.xs4all.nl/~josvg/cits/sb/sb208.html

_________________JOSEFINE TO THE PHANTOM:You come off as... somewhat... rough...

Holy crap, you're right. I hate WDTW and its vapid lyrics and bland melodies, so I always have skipped over this song in the ALW birthday video. But I did a quick YouTube and immediately heard it. It's a brief section, but clearly the same, unlike some of these more ambiguous "lifts."

I'd love to hear comparisons of your extensive list because in much of it, I don't know what you're referring to or can't remember what some of these songs sound like.

I found "Es el pueblo" on YouTube, and don't heard the melody you think sounds like "And the Money Kept Rolling In."

I hate WDTW and its vapid lyrics and bland melodies, so I always have skipped over this song in the ALW birthday video.

I'm not a fan of Whistle but I do think it has a lot more going for it than some people give it credit for. I actually remember being somewhat moved when I saw it the first time, despite my many problems with the show. But definitely not first-rate Lloyd Webber...and probably the first true flop in his string over the last decade and a half.

I found "Es el pueblo" on YouTube, and don't heard the melody you think sounds like "And the Money Kept Rolling In."

Really? I would not be surprised if there are many tunes called 'Es el pueblo' though -- was the one you found definitely a Peronist march? I have to confess that I have never actually heard Es el pueblo -- this information was provided to me a by a die-hard and extremely knowledgeable Evita fan whose word I am inclined to trust. My understanding is that the tune was played in the background of the TV documentary about Evita (called Queen of Hearts) that Tim Rice and ALW watched repeatedly when researching her life, as it was one of the few sources available. The guy who made that documentary told me that it is actually his voice that is used as the announcer of Eva's death on the concept album. I have yet to obtain a copy of the documentary though so I can't yet check. Apparently Tim Rice said ALW had no idea he had even lifted it from the documentary, he had just absorbed it and out it came.

In an interview ALW recently gave in Germany promoting LND, the plagiarism question came up and ALW said he has his work checked by a team of music experts before it is released to check he hasn't gone and done precisely this. I wonder if the similarity of 'Our Kind of Love'/'Love Never Dies' to the theme tune for The Apartment slipped them by, or if they decided not to bother to check simply because it was recycled from a previous show of his.

I find the recycling within his work a bit of a shame if the tune has already become a standard part of a show. I saw Aspects over the weekend and was surprised that they had put in part of the 'Chanson d'enfance' that had been recycled in Whistle as 'If Only'. I had a hard time disassociating it from Whistle and it sort of ruined the moment for me.

Scorp wrote:I would not be surprised if there are many tunes called 'Es el pueblo' though -- was the one you found definitely a Peronist march?

Yeah, there were a number of videos with pics of the Perons and other figures, and images of LPs with the labels indicating it was a Peronista tune. There were also videos of Magaldi recordings.

You may be right on this -- I just did a YouTube search and the tune didn't remind me of 'And the Money Kept Rolling In' at all. Maybe it was a different Peronist march? The only way to find out is to get hold of that documentary...

List slightly updated after a lot of procrastination that I shouldn't have done today. With reference to number 54, I have been trying to hunt down the source of that tune for YEARS after hearing a record my father was playing. I remember commenting to him: 'You're listening top Evita?' before realising that what he was listening to wasn't Evita at all, but a record by The Shadows, a group that ALW has frequently stated influenced him...but I don't think ALW himself realises the extent to which he may have unconsciously borrowed from them. Ironically enough, The Shadows would later cover 'Don't Cry For Me, Argentina...'. Here's the tune in question for number 54: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGJSwYOyl1s -- I find it strange that no-one else seems to have noticed this other than me (at least no-one's written about it on the Net)...1) Love is Here (Like of us) TRAVEL HOPEFULLY from JEEVES / BY JEEVES 2) The Likes of Us (Likes of Us) VARIATION 18 from VARIATIONS / DANCE 3) You Won't Care About her Anymore (Likes of Us) I DON'T THINK I'M WANTED BACK AT HOME (Jacob's Journey) / NEVER AGAIN (By Jeeves) 4) Down Thru' Summer (Single) became the coda in BUENOS AIRES 5) 1969 (Single) used themes from Beethoven's F‹R ELISE and Dvorak's New World Symphony 6) Probably on Thursday (Single) the instrumental solo became the last lines in JOSEPH: "Give me my colour coat..." 7) Kansas Morning (Single) Same opening line as Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto (First Movement) and melody recycled as I DON'T KNOW HOW TO LOVE HIM from JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR Any Dream Will Do (JOSEPH) originally "I FANCY YOU", a song which TR and ALW wanted to record with Herman's Hermits 9) Eurovision Song (Eurovision) became SALADIN DAYS in "Come Back Richard", an ALW and TR show performed only once, and again musically recycled for KING HEROD'S SONG 10) The First Book of Samuel - this show doesn't last a minute, and the melody became SUPERSTAR 11) Summer Dream - a low point in the original JEEVES. ALW was meant to have recycled the melody for EVITA 12) Half a Moment (Jeeves) - the opening lines are the codas in AS IF WE NEVER SAID GOODBYE ('Countless spinning memories spin before my view/Like some toy kaleidoscope: images of you' => 'I don't want to be alone - that's all in the past/This world's waited long enough - I'm at home at last'13) Gumshoe / Odessa File Themes - SUNSET BOULEVARD and PHANTOM OF THE OPERA 14) Phantom of the Opera Theme - identical to the chromatic chord in Pink Floyd's Echoes 15) Buenos Aires - DOWN THRU SUMMER employed as the coda, with an obscure song RED ROOM to become the rest of the melody 16) High Flying Adored - DOWN ON THE FARM (with some lyrics still intact, e.g. "stars in my/your eyes when I/you crawl(ed) in (th)at night") and an unreleased song from JEEVES 17) Unexpected Song - LITERARY MEN from JEEVES 18) You Made me Think You Were in Love - the original version in Tell Me On A Sunday had a jumpy section which quoted from a song in JEEVES 19) Memory (Cats) - has a strong likeness to Puccini, and was intended for an early - if unsettled - version of SUNSET BOULEVARD, and a one-act musical about Puccini and Leoncavallo's race to write the "La BohËme" opera. The line 'Tonight will be a memory too' resembles a phrase of music from 'O Suave Fanciulla' in LA BOHEME. Sounds very close to 'Un Bel di' from MADAM BUTTERFLY, as well as Ravel's 'Bolero'20) Engine of Love - written before STARLIGHT EXPRESS and even added (after it's re-worded version was cut) to the show 21) There's Me - this should have been a song in JEEVES 22) Requiem - contains strong sections which sound like CATS 23) Married Man - Sarah Brightman was to sing this song with the London Philharmonic, around the time her and Andrew were engaged. We can obviously see why it was abandoned - and how (inevitably) the tune became MUSIC OF THE NIGHT! 24) I Don't Talk to Strangers - a song by Placido Domingo which was recycled (melodically) as ALL I ASK OF YOU and THE POINT OF NO RETURN25) Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again - combined with Angel of Music, this evolved from an earlier version of ASPECTS OF LOVE 26) CRICKET - nearly everything from this show has made it into future Lloyd Webber productions. 27) Love Changes Everything - recycled from a number written late in the American tour of STARLIGHT EXPRESS 28) Vaults of Heaven - The Jurassic Park Theme 29) Whistle Down the Wind - Steinman is recycling lyrics from several of his older songs, most notably "Future Ain't What it Used to Be" 30) Tyre Tracks and Broken Hearts - melodically, from a song in the American SONG AND DANCE (English Girls)31) If Only - another member of Lloyd Webber's childhood Toy Suite 32) 'The Heart is Slow to Learn' -> recycled as 'Our Kind of Love' and used in THE BEAUTIFUL GAME -> AGAIN recycled as the title song for LOVE NEVER DIES. Sounds very similar to the theme from Billy Wilder's THE APARTMENT.33) The Phantom of the Opera - Title song from PHANTOM recycled from JOSEPH'S Close Every Door and Benjamin's Calypso.34) THE WOMAN IN WHITE - "Please you needn't fear me" tune directly lifted from WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND'S "No-one's ever looked at me..."35) JOURNEY TO THE CEMETERY from the PHANTOM film - recycled from THE BEAUTIFUL GAME36) ANGEL OF MUSIC from PHANTOM - see the middle section of Sondheim's 'NOT WHILE I'M AROUND'37) Superstar from JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR - Tim Rice comments in his autobiography that this is extremely similar to 'Rosemary' from A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM38) End section of MEMORY extremely similar to "I can make your sad heart sing..." and "Silent music starts to play..." from SUNSET BOULEVARD's 'WITH ONE LOOK'39) MUSIC OF THE NIGHT contains a repeated phase that, according to a reviewer for TIME magazine, seems to quote "Come to Me, Bend to Me" from BRIGADOON40) I BELIEVE MY HEART - first notes of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7 (Leningrad)41) EVITA's "But we still have the magic we always had..." is set exactly to the same tune as SUNSET's "And there was only one kind of entertainment on hand...".42) Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again's bridge is lifted from JEEVES' Half a Moment.43) JOSEPH's "Anyone from anywhere can make it if he gets a lucky break" turns up in PHANTOM's Prima Donna: "He's abusing our position/In addition he wants money...".44) SUNSET's "I love flannel on a man/This will complement his tan" originally appeared in ASPECTS, e.g. "Why did I agree/To accept this bloody tour?", "Have a lovely night/Come and see me when you can" etc.45) And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out) - this is a straight melodic lift from an actual Peronist marching song called Es el Pueblo.46) I'd Be Surprisingly Good for You from EVITA recalls a Beatles song, according to the critic Howard Kissel, presumably Yesterday.47) Phrases in SUNSET BOULEVARD such as "I can say anything I want with my eyes" and "I will not have it butchered" echo "We make certain the doors are barred" and "We make certain our men are there" from PHANTOM.48) Music of the Night - The "Open up your mind/Let your fantasies unwind..." melody seems to be lifted from ëQuello che taceteí, the love duet in Act 1 from Puccini's opera LA FANCIULLA DEL WEST49) With One Look - a reworking of Will This Last Forever? from THE LIKES OF US50) As If We Never Said Goodbye - Formerly Lazy Days of Summer from CRICKET51) The melody in PHANTOM at the words, "And in his eyes/all the sadness of the world," is closely related to Liu's suicide music in the last act of Puccini's Turandot. 52) The line 'Silent music starts to play' from SUNSET BLVD's 'With One Look' is the same music for 'Step up my friend and be my host' from 'Be My Host' in Richard Rodgers' NO STRINGS53) 'When the dark unfolds its wings/Do you hear the strangest things?' from 'The Beauty Underneath' in LOVE NEVER DIES is to the same tune as 'I want someone with a knack/Not just any studio hack' in Salome from SUNSET BLVD54) Phrase of music that concludes 'Waltz for Eva and Che' and is used as the bridge for the original version of 'Buenos Aires' bears a very strong similarity to 'Theme for Young Lovers' by The Shadows. This song also contains phrases similar to 'They'll all talk about us when we die' from 'The Last Supper' in JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR55) "I know that I've wronged you..." from 'If Not For Me, For Her' in THE WOMAN IN WHITE recycled in LOVE NEVER DIES in 'Till I Hear You Sing' ('And sometimes, at night time, I dream that you are there...').56) Part of 'Chanson d'enfance' from ASPECTS reused in 'Too Much in Love to Care' in SUNSET57) 'Stop. Wait. Good.' from ASPECTS - reworking of Prokofiev's 'Gavotte' section of Symphony no. 158) Not a stolen theme as such, but 'Pilate and Christ' from JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR is very reminiscent of the Adagio section from Prokofiev's Symphony no. 5 in B flat 59) 'On this Night of a Thousand Stars' from EVITA apes Pérez Prado's 1955 hit "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White'

One more: Part of Anne's post-wedding lament from WiW ("You'll be the lady of Blackwater Park...") is lifted directly from the Kyrie from Webber's setting of the Requiem Mass.

I don't think ALW is derivative of other artists, at least consciously--listen to enough European-based music and you'll hear patterns repeated (the PotO/Echos thing is basically a chromatic scale; you can hear the same thing in "Why God Why?" from Miss Saigon). I do, however, believe he's very self-derivative--and it's gotten really bad in the past couple decades (or maybe it's just become more noticeable to me). I mean, lots of composers have a "trunk" that they pull from but I've never known anyone to so liberally crib from melodies that have already found an established place in his previous work.